


And Out of Sorrow, Joy

by fencer_x



Category: Junjou Romantica
Genre: M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 15:26:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13437699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fencer_x/pseuds/fencer_x
Summary: "You've spent your whole life being held by others while you cried."





	And Out of Sorrow, Joy

You've spent your whole life being held by others while you cried.

Your mother held you while you sobbed into her apron when you were five and you crashed your new bike into a gutter, bending the front wheel and snapping off the little flagpole your father had attached to the seat. You felt bad for getting tears and snot all over her, but the tears of frustration and humiliation just wouldn't stop, no matter how badly you wanted them to—and any and all efforts to that end just made you start heaving and hyperventilating. You had to lie on your bed for an hour before you started feeling better.

Your brother held you when you couldn't hold back your sorrow anymore when you were eight and attending your parents' funeral. It'd been all your fault—if you hadn't urged them to hurry home, if you'd been more thoughtful about the weather, if you'd just been a bit more mature… You couldn't understand how your brother could stand to even be in the same room as you, let alone comfort you, but you were grateful nonetheless of having someone be there for you while you sobbed uncontrollably into his shoulder, crying out how you missed them so so much and why did it have to hurt this much, why couldn't you make the tears stop? This time, you didn't start feeling better for a long time.

You've always been in awe of people who lower themselves to comfort others, who are strong and solid and unwavering in their support while you break down in their arms, always envied their ability to be a steadfast rock you can cling to in the stormy sorrow you always succumb to.

You never once contemplated that it feels just as good and relieving to _be_ that person that others cling to for comfort.

But when you felt Usagi-san's strong arms wrap around you—not for a warm hug or anything gentle or rewarding but in a desperate, clawing need to _be held_ , in that instant when his fingers clutched needily at your coat, almost painful, you couldn't help the guilty surge of satisfaction that washed over you, the joy of being able to be there for this person, to be something he _needed_.

It's wrong, you realize deep down, to take pleasure in someone else's pain, and you try to reason it away by reminding yourself it wasn't his pain that you appreciated—far from it, you'd started crying yourself with how deeply you empathized with his plight, his pitiful unrequited love.

It was just…simple ego. This proud, beautiful man who was unapologetically firm in his desires was standing here before you, clinging to you like a life raft and crying into your shoulder while the snow drifted down around you, his back heaving with soft, choked sobs as you brushed your fingers up and down. No one but you, he told you in a whisper, and your heart shuddered with pride and some deeper emotion you didn't recognize but realized you wanted to feel _more_ of, desperately so.

It should have scared you to realize you could've stood there in the freezing cold in that narrow pool of lamplight holding him close for _ages_ and been happy. Instead, you just quietly fold it up and file it away, warmed through by the emotions running high in your blood as much as by Usagi-san's own body still wrapped around your own.

Now, sitting across from him at the dinner table, letting your brother's and future sister-in-law's aimless chatter drift in one ear and out the other, you find your mind wandering. His eyes are still rimmed with red, but he's brushed it off as a response to the cold, a fact to which his flushed cheeks attest, and he urges your brother not to concern himself with it, to tell him more about this beautiful young thing he's managed to con into marrying him, and he wants to know everything—how they met, how they fell in love, and why Takahiro's kept her a secret all this time. He's wounded, he announces dramatically, he'd thought he was Takahiro's best friend.

And just like that, the tension is broken, and your stomach is twisting as you watch the scene unfold like a play. Your brother…is so stupid. So blind, so oblivious. How can such people exist? How can anyone stand to be around someone so utterly out of tune with the world about them that their every movement hurts those who love them most? How can _Usagi-san_ stand it? How can he sit there and smile and nod and flirt with Manami-san just enough to convince your brother that really, if he's acting strange, it's just because he's jealous your brother managed to land a beautiful wife before he did?

You can feel the rage building inside of you again, the frustration and pain on Usagi-san's behalf that eats away inside you like bile, clutching at your throat and sending a wave of nausea through you such that you feel as if you'll have to excuse yourself—lest you say something you'll regret later.

But then Usagi-san catches your eye—while your brother's distracted with something Manami-san has drawn up on her cell phone—and he shakes his head softly and lets a sorrowful smile tug at the corner of his lips, resting his head in one hand and brushing your calf with his own when he crosses his legs beneath the table. You wish for a desperate moment you were sitting beside him, and not across from him, because that flash of contact just isn't enough right now, and you'd give anything to be back outside standing alone in the cold streetlight holding him and telling him sweet lies like _it'll be okay_ and _he does love you_ and _you can cry on me whenever you like_ even though some you wish were less lies than others. Usagi-san isn't a bad guy at all, you realize; rather, he's _far too nice_. He deserves someone who'll love him back as deeply as he loves himself.

The snap of Manami-san's cell phone shutting brings you back to the present, and you realize your brother is talking to you, asking about your university prospects and status of your studies and other mundane things that just right now don't seem nearly as important as you know deep down they are. But then Usagi-san jumps in, reining in the conversation and steering it expertly his own way, regaling your brother with tales of your Spartan training under his thumb and how far you've come since you started with him, how you're a quick study and just need to focus more, how you've given him a sense of vicarious accomplishment in your own successes. How you've made him _proud_.

Your brother claps you on the back, all congratulatory smiles, and you just want to sink into the floor with embarrassment, glaring at Usagi-san who seems oblivious to your delicate emotional state and has instead pasted on that frustratingly confident smirk you've rarely seen him without. On some level, it comforts you—it's the usual Usagi-san again.

But then you see it—flickering just below the surface, half-hidden by the flush of wine and sharp, calculating gaze. A more genuine, warm expression of appreciation, a smile that has no bite or smarm, only gratitude and silent comfort, as if to say _I'll be okay_ —and you want to shout at him that he doesn't _have_ to be "okay". He can be _not okay_ and you'll hold him till it doesn't hurt anymore, he never has to cry in front of anyone else if he doesn't want.

Others have been strong for you all your life, and you've finally found someone you want to be strong _for_. It's exhilarating, it's empowering, it's fulfilling. It's like falling in love.

And later, when you realize you've thought that sort of thing, you'll shake your head and give yourself a stern talking to. But just now, with your mind a little fuzzy with wine and Usagi-san's leg brushing against your own again, you think that maybe that's exactly what it is.


End file.
